Summer Romantica
by praiseofshadows
Summary: Unsurprisingly, it gets a bit more awkward as the rest of the cast gets introduced. Seto&Anzu. Abandoned.
1. Chocolate

**Disclaimer:** Don't own the Yu-Gi-Oh.

xxxxxxx

They stood face-to-face in Domino High's main hall. A few feet were all that separated them.

"Oh, come _on_," Anzu said, trying to hide her embarrassment with bluster. "This can't be the first time a girl's given you chocolate."

Kaiba continued to stare at her. He made no move to take the small bundle from her outstretched hand. Around them, a crowd began to gather.

Faint color bloomed at the edges of his cheekbones, and his great blue eyes widened in shock before he consciously narrowed them. And then, in his most obnoxious drawl, he said, "Forgive my shock." He seemed on the verge of beginning one of his vicious tirades, and Anzu knew that if he did, she'd have all her laundry aired to what looked to be half of Domino High.

This called for drastic measures. She crossed the few steps between them and reached for Kaiba's wrist and pressed up, so his hand lay flat. She dumped her small bag of chocolates into his palm.

Their hands stayed clasped for a moment, the chocolates between them. She was close enough that she could feel the heat from his body, muted though it was beneath his school jacket.

He smelled like expensive cologne and good, clean soap.

"Happy Valentine's Day," she said. She looked up at his face and gave him her best smile – the one she usually reserved for dance recitals. "Kaiba-kun."

He jerked his hand back. The chocolates went with him.

He began to push past her.

"Don't expect anything for White Day," he said, breath unsettlingly near her ear.

She turned to watch him walk away. He didn't look back, but she noticed the care he took as he put her chocolates into the side pocket of his trousers.


	2. Just Luck

**A/N:** This is set post-series but before Kaiba and the Yugi-tachi graduate from high school. It's also going to a lot lighter in outlook than most of what I write (but that may because Anzu is narrating it ).

**Definitions:** _giri-choco_ (obligation chocolate) – chocolate a girl gives a boy on Valentine's Day out of friendship/obligation but not out of romance.

xxxxxxx

I really had no one to blame but myself.

After all, I was the one who decided to add Kaiba-kun to my _giri-choco_ list last Valentine's Day. It wasn't that we were such great friends or anything, but I've always been a fan of Valentine's Day. I know there are lots of girls who agonize over it: spending days and days thinking of the appropriate way to approach that special guy. Me, I've never had the problem. I'm a fan of _giri-choco_. Always have been.

Valentine's Day is the one day of the year I can shower my best friends (all guys, by the way) with affection. Because, heaven knows, none of them – besides Yugi-kun – get enough of it at home. I mean, Jounouchi-kun's father spends most of his time drunk and disorderly. Honda-kun's parents are far too involved in themselves, Bakura-kun's father is away on digs, and Otogi-kun's father is a certified psychopath.

Which is why adding Kaiba-kun didn't seem like such a bad idea. I mean, no one's homelife had ever been as bad as Kaiba-kun's.

And he had severe issues to prove it.

But he didn't have too many issues not to accept my _giri-choco_. And even though he told me that he absolutely wouldn't get me a thing for White Day (complete with trademark sneer), he somehow managed to leave a beautifully wrapped box from one of the more expensive Domino chocolatiers in my locker. No name, of course, but I could smell his aftershave on it.

Kaiba-kun didn't like to be indebted to anyone; I knew that. Most of the times he actually _helped_ us (as opposed to watching us with his arms crossed and that smirk on his lips) was because he felt he _owed_ us, and he didn't want any outstanding debts. Still, as I put the box into my bookbag at the end of the school day, I thought maybe, just maybe, Kaiba-kun had decided to take us up on our offer of friendship after all.

Alexander Pope once wrote "Hope springs eternal," and yeah, that's pretty much my motto in life. I'm optimistic; I try to find solutions instead of just complaining. I dunno…I suppose there are people who find me annoying, but I'm not so sure I could stand myself if I were one of those girls that spent their lives bitching day in and day out instead of getting off their lazy asses and doing _something_.

Even if that something turns out to be colossally stupid later.

I didn't eat Kaiba-kun's gorgeously wrapped box of white chocolate. Instead I stuffed it into my bedroom desk drawer. The smell of his aftershave stayed, and every time I opened the drawer up for a pencil or a sheet of paper, I would smell it. It was as if I had walked by him in the school hallway or at a dueling tournament.

Kaiba-kun's aftershave was better than any white chocolate. Everything Kaiba-kun owned was always hideously expensive: from his leather trenchcoats to his cellphones. But it was the aftershave that made me stop and do another take. It was spicy and lent a feeling of _warmth_, which was _way_ beyond funny because if anybody could find an aftershave that screamed "keep away" you'd think it would be Kaiba-kun. But no, he wore this heavenly, heavenly scent that made me think of that Indian tea they flavour with garam masala and milk.

It didn't smell a thing like what the other boys in our year wore.

For one thing, I was pretty sure it was aftershave and not cologne. Jou-kun wore cologne: he really didn't shave yet although he pretended he did. And so he slathered himself with cologne (especially if a certain Kujaku Mai was in the vicinity). Yugi-kun didn't shave, either, although I don't think he was too worried about that. I man, you only had to _look_ at Ji-san to know what Yugi-kun would look like in fifty years (something that I think maybe scared Yugi-kun more than anything else). Honda-kun…well…Honda-kun _claimed_ he shaved, but then Honda-kun claimed a lot of things. Many of which were not, in fact, true.

Kaiba-kun did shave, and I knew that for a fact.

Actually, so did the rest of the school because the week or so before Kaiba Corporation announced some new breakthrough in gaming software, Kaiba-kun would either absent himself or (if he had used all his absentee dates for the term), come to school with messy hair, bloodshot eyes, and a five o'clock shadow that made the rest of the boys in Homeroom Z seethe with envy.

He also sleeps through most of our classes and spends lunch hour taking a million calls.

But, at the moment, I had an up-close and very personal view of the well-shaven jaw of one Kaiba Seto not to mention his glorious scent. After all, we weren't just schoolfellows who occasionally were enemies, allies, and (perhaps) friends. No, we were class trip partners.

I'm just lucky that way I guess.


	3. Long Ride

xxxxxxx

I've been in close proximity to Kaiba Seto before. Several occasions, actually. Mostly involving planes and choppers. _Never_ on pubic transport and ever with the controlled-chaos that is Homeroom Z surrounding us.

We were going to Kyoto. It was the summer term trip Domino High had taken all its third year students since – well, since at least my mother had attended, and I'm pretty sure it was old then. Pairings were _supposed_ to be girl-girl and boy-boy, but our year had an odd number of both, and so Kaiba-kun and I drew the short straws on same-sex pairing.

Obviously, we couldn't (like the other pairs) room together. I was rooming with a female chaperone, Kaiba-kun with a male one, but we were to be seatmates on the train and any other form of transportation we found ourselves on.

Kaiba-kun had taken the window seat, but (predictably) he was typing away at both his laptop and his blackberry. I suppose the teachers felt they were pushing their luck just by getting him to go _on_ the trip and that denying him his technology fix was pushing that luck too far.

He also (of course) wasn't talking to me.

The boys (unfortunately) weren't on our car, and though I initially had tried to carry on a conversation with the girls across the aisle, they had made it plain that they weren't interested in adding another into their ranks.

So. I was deprived of scenery _and_ of conversation. I read a magazine. Then another. Then even the train's safety instructions in event of an accident.

Then (as we still had two hours to go) I decided enough was enough.

"Having fun?" I asked Kaiba-kun.

Kaiba-kun looked up at me through his too-long bangs that were just screaming for a hair-cut. "What's it look like?"

Four words; I was impressed. Kaiba-kun sure was talkative today.

"Not sure. Standard of deviation has too great a margin of error."

Weak joke, I know, but the left corner of Kaiba-kun's mouth twitched slightly, and I assumed that meant either that he appreciated my effort or was slightly impressed I actually knew what standard of deviation _was_.

"Huh." Kaiba-kun deigned to close his laptop, though his right hand continued to hold his blackberry stylus. "I suppose you're bored."

"You suppose correctly."

I saw a hint of Kaiba-kun's even, white teeth. Then, "If you're that bored…" And he handed me a thick folder that had been sitting by his side. "There's a highlighter inside," he told me. "Highlight all of the June 10th transactions."

Well, I had set myself up for that one.

By the time we arrived at our hotel, I could safely say I was no longer bored. No, I was _dead_ from boredom. And I had highlighter marks all over my fingers.

On the other hand, I no longer could claim myself ignorant of Kaiba Corporation's intra-plant shipping on June 10th.

Such is life.


	4. Awkward Questions

xxxxxxx

We arrived at the hotel as the staff was setting up the dinner buffet, proving that the Domino school administrators may have been foolish to take a wild herd of highschoolers on a weekend trip, but they sure as heck weren't stupid.

I heard Jounouchi-kun's war whoop as soon as I entered the hotel lobby, and I felt a momentary sympathy for the other hotel guests. They were really going to regret staying here with us.

"Now class," Tomo-sensei said. "_Indoor_ voices, please." Tomo-sensei was under the impression we were third graders instead of third _years_, and the boys were all under the impression that though she had a nice rack, she had no authority whatsoever.

The pandemonium continued.

A loud whistle echoed through the lobby, startling everyone – even Kaiba-kun, who said "I'll call you back" into his cell phone and hung up – into silence.

"You _will_ form two lines. And you _will_ walk into the dining room with your partner," barked Coach.

We jostled into position. I saw Otogi-kun nudge Honda-kun a tad too hard with his elbow. Unfortunately, so did Coach.

"Otogi, drop and give me thirty," he said.

Saying that Coach was hardcore was an understatement. He taught P.E. and coached boys' basketball, and he must have had a real name, but I didn't know it. We all just called him Coach. Or sometimes, when he was particularly incensed, we called him "Coach, sir."

While we all watched Otogi-kun, a horrible thought struck me. "Umm…Kaiba-kun?" I whispered.

"Yeah?"

"Are you sharing a room with Coach?"

He looked as horrified as I felt. "No," he whispered, shaking his head so furiously that a lock of hair came un-gelled and fell in his eyes. "His daughter's getting married tomorrow. Or something. So he's going back tonight."

Presumably, Kaiba-kun had had some time to reconcile himself to the fact that Coach not only had _spawned_ but that he now would have a son-in-law. I had not had such time, and I was temporarily struck dumb. I stared at Coach's thinning hair, his hairy forearms, and those knee socks he insisted on wearing everywhere.

Someone had married _that_. Ew.

Otogi-kun got up off the floor, and I saw the cheerleading team (loyal fans all) make as if to go to them. One look from Coach, however, and they stopped dead in their tracks.

After that, walking into the dining room and going through the buffet line was positively anticlimactic.

"So…how are you two, doing?" Tomo-sensei asked, plunking herself down next to me. "Broken that ice yet?" She sounded as if breaking the ice was the most exciting thing she had ever heard of.

I had been half-heartedly picking at my curry, and Kaiba-kun was staring at his blackberry, as if just by looking at it he could make it ring.

She didn't wait for us to answer. "I thought I'd join you two," she continued. "Since Anzu and I will be sharing a room, isn't that right, Anzu?"

"Umm…"

She gave me what – I'm sure – she thought was a conspiring wink. "Don't worry! It'll be fun. We can stay up late and talk about _boys_."

Kaiba-kun made a noise that very suspiciously sounded like a snort.

"Oh, but you mustn't think you'll be excluded, Kaiba-kun," Tomo-sensei said, turning her face towards him. "I'm just as eager to get to know you." And bless her, if she didn't sound _sincere_ when she said it.

"So," she continued, oblivious to the fact we both thought her a few bats short of a belfry, "how long have you two been dating?"


	5. More Awkwardness

xxxxxxx

Kaiba-kun sort of choked. I just sort of stared.

"_What_?" I finally managed to say, once I could get my jaw to stop hanging and work properly.

"Oh," she said, looking from me to Kaiba-kun. Then back at me. She clucked her tongue, suggesting that our lack of dating was perhaps as great a tragedy as the latest round of killings in the Middle East. Then, "_Oh_. I see. You two are keeping it on the DL. Or the QT. Or whatever hip-lingo you cool cats use these days." She gave a beatific smile. "Well, we can have girl-time later tonight, and you can tell me all about it!"

I wasn't sure what traumatized me more: her attempt to use slang or the promise of an evening filled with more incredibly awkward slang.

She gave me what must have been the cheesiest, most conspicuous wink in the known universe and stood up. It was all Kaiba-kun and I could do to watch her inflict herself on the next table over.

"Wow," I exhaled.

"Girl-time," Kaiba-kun repeated, disbelief in his voice.

I groaned and buried my face in my hands. "I hate you," I muttered, without any real conviction in my voice. Then, without any more conviction, "Switch rooms with me."

Kaiba-kun gave one of his "I'm-making-this-noise-so-you-think-I'm-acknowledging-you" grunts. Which surprised me. Well, it didn't surprise me that he was making it or that I understood it (yes, I speak fluent Kaiba-kun – I blame all those long helicopter rides). But it did surprise me that he was saying it to _me_, as both I and the rest of the Yugi-tachi usually were given the "I-know-you-so-you-get-a-noise-slightly-more-resembling-an-actual-word" grunts. And then, of course, there was the fact we had been having something like a conversation.

And then I realized – once again – we weren't alone at our table.

I raised my head out of my hands, hoping against hope that it wasn't the return of Tomo-sensei. And her bizarre ideas about how high schoolers talked.

And it wasn't. It was someone far worse.

"Anzu-chan," he said, smile oily and his eyes (as always) staring somewhere decidedly lower than my face. My skin crawled, but I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of crossing my arms over my chest. Finally, apparently satisfied by his perusal of my breasts, he turned his attention to Kaiba-kun. "And Kaiba-kun."

Niomiya-sensei taught chemistry. And he wore a lab coat and pretended it made him some sort of research scientist. Worse still, he was wearing the lab coat out of school and _in public_. And don't even get me started on his incredibly chauvinistic and misogynistic (and probably much more –istic) attitude.

"I'm here to give Kaiba-kun his room key," Niomiya-sensei continued. "And to see if you two had any problems. Especially you, Anzu-chan. I know it's hard for you." He licked his thin lips. "Separated from your friends." He seemed far too eager to hear about any problems, and I knew that if I had been alone, he most likely would have offered his shoulder to cry on. He'd offered it to Miho once. Ew.

The worst thing about Niomiya-sensei was that if he had been a guy my age, I would've given him a dressing down right then and there. But he was a teacher, and all I could was count to ten – slowly – inside my head. I'm not very good with feeling powerless.

Kaiba-kun put down his blackberry and held out his hand, palm up and fingers flat, for the key.

Niomiya-sensei had set himself up for that one, and he couldn't really do anything except hand Kaiba-kun the little cardboard holder with the keycard (presumably) inside. The number 413 was scrawled across the top.

Niomiya-sensei obviously expected us to start up a conversation with him, and when neither of us did, he shifted a little bit. "Well," he said, finally, after the shuffling of his feet did nothing to improve the silence across the table. "I'd best be off to supervise. Kaiba-kun, I'll see you later tonight." And with one last look at my chest and a return of that oily smile, he had (mercifully) departed.

"I take it back," I said, when I trusted myself to speak again. "Tomo-sensei's worth a dozen of him."

Kaiba-kun considered this. "Two dozen," he offered.

"Two dozen and Coach?" I suggested, the unease that always accompanied Niomiya-sensei starting to fade.

"Deal," Kaiba-kun said.

And we shook on it.


End file.
